Got into Nepenthesd about 6 months ago so I've recently gone through a pretty complete beginners phase. Here's some tips that I learned: 1. If you've done something wrong and have a few plants that seem to have stalled in growth entirely, don't immediately give up on them. I burnt a Lady Luck to a crisp and it did nothing for months even after adjusting the light to a more tolerable level. Then I put it in a high humidity place and it started growing again fine and has fully recovered. 2. Don't buy that amazing looking, expensive plant first. It's hard not to want to get the best you can when you start because your excitement is so high, but you want to make sure you have your best practices figured out first (watering, maintaining humidity, viable potting media, light, etc.) 3. If you want a cheaper alternative to buying a full grow tent, buy some wire shelves on Amazon, use crystal clear gorilla tape to essentially wrap the shelves in plastic liner. I used a few $3 clear plastic liners from walmart. You can make an easy access flap in the front with some strips of velcro to hold in place. Then all you need are some grow lights, a couple computer fans, and a humidifer that you connect the output to the tent. The advantage of this method is it's extremely space saving as the structure that holds the tent also supports the shelves. If you buy a typical grow tent you'll have to buy shelves anyways. For lights ones that are a foot shorter than the width of your shelves should work. My setup uses two 14"x36"x72" shelves creating a 28"x36"x72" grow space. So for each shelf I have 1 2-foot grow light installed; 4 total as I have it set up for two shelves holding plants. This won't haev the most even light distribution but it's actually advantageous as certain species will want less light and certain will want more. Adjust their placement accordingly. I installed two computer fans with adjustable speed so I can keep them as quiet as I need. Another advantage to this method is you can stretch the plastic sheeting a little to allow for a little more space depending on the dimensions of your plant trays. 4. The more plants you get, the more you will want to automate your system so you don't get burnt out from so much work. I have my lights on a timer switch for about 15 hours a day. The easiest way to keep humidity levels at a reasonable level is to hook up your humidifier to a timer switch and have it on for 15mins every 1-2 hours. At first you will need to colesly monitor your levels as too much humidity will cause issues with algae growth and too little will obviously affect your plants. The better method is to buy a humidity controller which will be more expensive, but better in the long run. Ones like the Inkbird Humidity Controller that are plug and play are very easy to set up and reduces your effort to simply keeping the water filled. 5. Water brings me to my next point: If you don't have many plants, a Zero Water filter system is perfect. It will end up being cheaper than buying gallons of distilled water, but isn't very fast. You will get to a point where you need an RO system or a local supplier of RO water. RO sytems can be very expensive, but I got just about the cheapest one on Amazon, the Express Water RO5DX and it was only about $180. In the long run the RO system will save you money and will make it much easier for you to keep a steady supply of water. They do take some handiwork to set up, but definitely worth it imo. 6. Track your temps and humidity levels. If oyu don't track them, you won't know what they are and you won't be able to make adjustments to your system to better suit plants' needs. Something as simple as a $12 Govee Bluetooth Hygrometer Thermometer is perfect. Track your day temps and night temps. and keep an eye on humidity. Ideally you want consistently above 60%, preferably in the 70-80% range. I have my inkbird set to 80-85%. Above 60% will allow you to grow most species, 70-80% will ensure almsot all species do well. (Some highland and lowland Nepenthes will want above 80% bot those are typically the expensive plants, not beginner plants.) For intermediate conditions, aim for 65-70F nights and 70-80F days. 7. Use Tom's Carnivores Nepenthes Calculator before you buy any plant online. The ranges may not always be perfect but you need to be sure that the plant you're looking at has temp requirments that are at least close to what your system can accomodate. 8. Hybrids first: hybrid Nepenthes will be able to tolerate more temperature ranges, especially if it is a lowland crossed with a highland or vice versa. Use the Nepenthes Calculator to determine the hybrid's temp requirements and read up on the parents. Certain parents are harder to grow by nature so factor that in. 9. If your conditions are optimal, your plant should make leaf jumps, ie. every few leaves, the newest leaf is larger than previous leaves. If this isn't occuring, try to figure out what conditions are not optimal. Leaf jumps will occur first, then pitcher jumps. Bigger pitchers is what everyone wants, but pitcher size depends on the age of the plant and whether it likes the conditions it's growing in. 10. If a plant has made leaf jumps, and appears healthy but the pitcher embryos aren't expanding into pitchers, the firs thing you should experiment with is light level. As lonbg as the leaves aren't already showing any signs of too much light exposure, move the plant to a spot with higher light levels and leave it for a few weeks. 11. Join Facebook groups such as Nepenthes Only. One of the quickest ways to expand your knowledge of caring for plants and also for exposing yourself to new species and crosses that you might want to get in the future. 12. Buy plants and/or seeds from reputabel sellers. Facebook Marketplace is a good place to get scammed, so know the risk. Ebay is somewhat sketchy, but there are reputable sellers. Etsy doesn't have anything other than the most basic plants. If you're in the US, I can't recommend Florae enough. Best prices I've seen, but mostly Tissue Culture plants. Tissue Culture vs. Seed Grown is an ongoing debate, but the differences are most likely minimal in terms of plant vigor and health. Main difference will be that seed grown plants have potential for different genetic traits to be more or less expressed, for example more striped vs less striped. 13. Try to find local enthusiasts and see if they are selling/willing to trade with you. In my experience this is the best way to get crosses that aren't available from large nurseries, and you will get the best price for larger plants. Having a few larger plants in your collection is a good way to bridge the gap between your baby plants growing into mature pitcher growers. 14. Take pictures of your plants every few weeks. Seeing progress in your plants is one of the msot satisfying aspects of growing Nepenthes, so taking picture so oyu can look back on how far they've come is a great way to avoid feeling like you'll be long gone before they produce those amazing mature pitchers. 15. The plants labelled monkey cups or simply pitcher plant at your local nursery are almost certainly Nepenthes Ventrata (ventricosa x alata). They are widely considered the easiest Nepenthes to grow. Don't be like me and buy 5 of them to try to get your Nepenthes fix, they will all look about the same and are often the same price as rarer hybrids you can buy online.
great video, your advice helped me save my nepenthes, thank you for that, my question- are there any insects that eat the leaves?? I found two new leaves either broken or eaten, I could not find anything that could have caused this, thank you in advance.
So glad to hear that, that's been my entire intention of the channel is to help people. Caterpillars will eat the leaves and pitchers but so will rodents. I've had rats and possums chewing on my leaves.
Perhaps you should make people aware that these plants tend to be addictive.. buy one, just one more and end up with 100😅. Perhaps a cheap digital hydro and temperature device could be helpful in order to keep track of the growing environment . For lighting, cheap shoplights are great!
Hahaha I don't wanna give that part away till we have them hooked on nepenthes 🤣 It's true checking conditions is a great idea but I wanted this video to be purely for those people who just wanna buy 1 or 2 plants no special gear and just grow the plants for enjoyment. They will evolve and get hooked in no time
Got into Nepenthesd about 6 months ago so I've recently gone through a pretty complete beginners phase. Here's some tips that I learned:
1. If you've done something wrong and have a few plants that seem to have stalled in growth entirely, don't immediately give up on them. I burnt a Lady Luck to a crisp and it did nothing for months even after adjusting the light to a more tolerable level. Then I put it in a high humidity place and it started growing again fine and has fully recovered.
2. Don't buy that amazing looking, expensive plant first. It's hard not to want to get the best you can when you start because your excitement is so high, but you want to make sure you have your best practices figured out first (watering, maintaining humidity, viable potting media, light, etc.)
3. If you want a cheaper alternative to buying a full grow tent, buy some wire shelves on Amazon, use crystal clear gorilla tape to essentially wrap the shelves in plastic liner. I used a few $3 clear plastic liners from walmart. You can make an easy access flap in the front with some strips of velcro to hold in place. Then all you need are some grow lights, a couple computer fans, and a humidifer that you connect the output to the tent. The advantage of this method is it's extremely space saving as the structure that holds the tent also supports the shelves. If you buy a typical grow tent you'll have to buy shelves anyways. For lights ones that are a foot shorter than the width of your shelves should work. My setup uses two 14"x36"x72" shelves creating a 28"x36"x72" grow space. So for each shelf I have 1 2-foot grow light installed; 4 total as I have it set up for two shelves holding plants. This won't haev the most even light distribution but it's actually advantageous as certain species will want less light and certain will want more. Adjust their placement accordingly. I installed two computer fans with adjustable speed so I can keep them as quiet as I need. Another advantage to this method is you can stretch the plastic sheeting a little to allow for a little more space depending on the dimensions of your plant trays.
4. The more plants you get, the more you will want to automate your system so you don't get burnt out from so much work. I have my lights on a timer switch for about 15 hours a day. The easiest way to keep humidity levels at a reasonable level is to hook up your humidifier to a timer switch and have it on for 15mins every 1-2 hours. At first you will need to colesly monitor your levels as too much humidity will cause issues with algae growth and too little will obviously affect your plants. The better method is to buy a humidity controller which will be more expensive, but better in the long run. Ones like the Inkbird Humidity Controller that are plug and play are very easy to set up and reduces your effort to simply keeping the water filled.
5. Water brings me to my next point: If you don't have many plants, a Zero Water filter system is perfect. It will end up being cheaper than buying gallons of distilled water, but isn't very fast. You will get to a point where you need an RO system or a local supplier of RO water. RO sytems can be very expensive, but I got just about the cheapest one on Amazon, the Express Water RO5DX and it was only about $180. In the long run the RO system will save you money and will make it much easier for you to keep a steady supply of water. They do take some handiwork to set up, but definitely worth it imo.
6. Track your temps and humidity levels. If oyu don't track them, you won't know what they are and you won't be able to make adjustments to your system to better suit plants' needs. Something as simple as a $12 Govee Bluetooth Hygrometer Thermometer is perfect. Track your day temps and night temps. and keep an eye on humidity. Ideally you want consistently above 60%, preferably in the 70-80% range. I have my inkbird set to 80-85%. Above 60% will allow you to grow most species, 70-80% will ensure almsot all species do well. (Some highland and lowland Nepenthes will want above 80% bot those are typically the expensive plants, not beginner plants.) For intermediate conditions, aim for 65-70F nights and 70-80F days.
7. Use Tom's Carnivores Nepenthes Calculator before you buy any plant online. The ranges may not always be perfect but you need to be sure that the plant you're looking at has temp requirments that are at least close to what your system can accomodate.
8. Hybrids first: hybrid Nepenthes will be able to tolerate more temperature ranges, especially if it is a lowland crossed with a highland or vice versa. Use the Nepenthes Calculator to determine the hybrid's temp requirements and read up on the parents. Certain parents are harder to grow by nature so factor that in.
9. If your conditions are optimal, your plant should make leaf jumps, ie. every few leaves, the newest leaf is larger than previous leaves. If this isn't occuring, try to figure out what conditions are not optimal. Leaf jumps will occur first, then pitcher jumps. Bigger pitchers is what everyone wants, but pitcher size depends on the age of the plant and whether it likes the conditions it's growing in.
10. If a plant has made leaf jumps, and appears healthy but the pitcher embryos aren't expanding into pitchers, the firs thing you should experiment with is light level. As lonbg as the leaves aren't already showing any signs of too much light exposure, move the plant to a spot with higher light levels and leave it for a few weeks.
11. Join Facebook groups such as Nepenthes Only. One of the quickest ways to expand your knowledge of caring for plants and also for exposing yourself to new species and crosses that you might want to get in the future.
12. Buy plants and/or seeds from reputabel sellers. Facebook Marketplace is a good place to get scammed, so know the risk. Ebay is somewhat sketchy, but there are reputable sellers. Etsy doesn't have anything other than the most basic plants. If you're in the US, I can't recommend Florae enough. Best prices I've seen, but mostly Tissue Culture plants. Tissue Culture vs. Seed Grown is an ongoing debate, but the differences are most likely minimal in terms of plant vigor and health. Main difference will be that seed grown plants have potential for different genetic traits to be more or less expressed, for example more striped vs less striped.
13. Try to find local enthusiasts and see if they are selling/willing to trade with you. In my experience this is the best way to get crosses that aren't available from large nurseries, and you will get the best price for larger plants. Having a few larger plants in your collection is a good way to bridge the gap between your baby plants growing into mature pitcher growers.
14. Take pictures of your plants every few weeks. Seeing progress in your plants is one of the msot satisfying aspects of growing Nepenthes, so taking picture so oyu can look back on how far they've come is a great way to avoid feeling like you'll be long gone before they produce those amazing mature pitchers.
15. The plants labelled monkey cups or simply pitcher plant at your local nursery are almost certainly Nepenthes Ventrata (ventricosa x alata). They are widely considered the easiest Nepenthes to grow. Don't be like me and buy 5 of them to try to get your Nepenthes fix, they will all look about the same and are often the same price as rarer hybrids you can buy online.
Love the videos, time stamps would be awesome!
Thanks, I'll try look into it.
great video, your advice helped me save my nepenthes, thank you for that, my question- are there any insects that eat the leaves?? I found two new leaves either broken or eaten, I could not find anything that could have caused this, thank you in advance.
So glad to hear that, that's been my entire intention of the channel is to help people.
Caterpillars will eat the leaves and pitchers but so will rodents. I've had rats and possums chewing on my leaves.
Great job on the channel and website.What brand or size are your cocochips.?
Thanks mate. I'm not sure on the brand (they are from enfield pet and garden supplies). I use both medium and fine size chips depending on the plant.
Very helpful vid. I'm YET to get into nepenthes. When I DO, I'll buy from YOU.😊😊✔✔Pete. 👍
It's a good transition from aroids to nepenthes. Alot of people see the light and switch focus.
@@Eat-Me-Exotics It'll be a while but being into "ALL Plants" is VERY good for our brains eh. Look after your knee. Have a FAB day!🙋♂
Perhaps you should make people aware that these plants tend to be addictive.. buy one, just one more and end up with 100😅.
Perhaps a cheap digital hydro and temperature device could be helpful in order to keep track of the growing environment .
For lighting, cheap shoplights are great!
Hahaha I don't wanna give that part away till we have them hooked on nepenthes 🤣
It's true checking conditions is a great idea but I wanted this video to be purely for those people who just wanna buy 1 or 2 plants no special gear and just grow the plants for enjoyment. They will evolve and get hooked in no time
@@Eat-Me-Exotics 🤣🤣 I just started out 1 year ago and now ... ua-cam.com/video/nK2ANGiEQxE/v-deo.html
Do u still have anymore of the red leopards?
I think I've got a couple. I'll be putting them up on my website with the next update.
Wtf wheres my mug
He dropped some merch😂
Hahaha one day I'll get some extras made up. Maybe stubby coolers?
@@Eat-Me-Exotics 🤑🤑🤑🤑